Gibson Maryellen, Dell Colleen Anne, Chalmers Darlene, Rath Grace, Mela Mansfield
One Health and Wellness Office, Department of Sociology, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada.
Faculty of Social Work, University of Regina, Regina, SK, Canada.
Front Psychiatry. 2023 Aug 3;14:1219096. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1219096. eCollection 2023.
In recent years, there has been a global advancement in the offering of canine-assisted interventions (CAI) in prisons. However, these programs have focused primarily on the benefits to the dogs involved and not on the impact on the participants. The authors of this perspective study have been running a CAI program with therapy dogs, called PAWSitive Support, in a Canadian federal prison since 2016. Thoughts from the program facilitators and interviews with prison staff indicate that the program, and specifically the therapy dogs, provides a unique and integrated source of comfort, support, and love for participants. These benefits are consistent with those seen in CAI programs outside of prisons. Unique to the prison setting appears to be an improvement in participant-staff relations. The therapy dogs have helped participants to experience comfort and consequently express their emotions. This seems to contribute to their recognition of support within the prison system and specifically developing trust with staff. Additionally, the dogs have helped to create an experience of the feeling of love within the prison, interpreted as the feeling of being cared for, which is rare for this population. The authors suggest that the integration of a therapy dog intervention in prison could be a novel harm reduction strategy to address issues related to prisonization and associated mental health concerns, including substance use. This consideration can offer unique insight into the field of forensic psychiatry about providing compassionate care to patients.
近年来，监狱中犬类辅助干预（CAI）的开展在全球范围内取得了进展。然而，这些项目主要关注的是对参与其中的犬只的益处，而非对参与者的影响。这项前瞻性研究的作者自2016年以来一直在加拿大一所联邦监狱开展一项名为“积极支持”（PAWSitive Support）的犬类辅助干预项目，该项目使用治疗犬。项目协调员的想法以及对监狱工作人员的访谈表明，该项目，尤其是治疗犬，为参与者提供了独特且综合的安慰、支持和爱的来源。这些益处与监狱外的犬类辅助干预项目中所看到的一致。监狱环境中独特的一点似乎是参与者与工作人员的关系得到了改善。治疗犬帮助参与者感受到安慰，从而能够表达自己的情绪。这似乎有助于他们认识到监狱系统内的支持，并特别与工作人员建立信任。此外，这些犬只还在监狱中营造了一种爱的体验，被理解为被关爱的感觉，而这对这一群体来说是很少见的。作者们建议，在监狱中引入治疗犬干预可能是一种新的减少伤害策略，以解决与监狱化及相关心理健康问题（包括药物使用）有关的问题。这一考量可以为法医精神病学领域在为患者提供 compassionate care方面提供独特的见解。
